I write this to all new police officers, and is the same advice I gave to my own son: how to address the challenge of policing in the era of COVID19 and its aftermath.
TJ is a rookie police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department in the District of Columbia. He is assigned to 5-D. He loves the job and the Department. In fact, he loved the Academy. When he told me that, I had to ask myself – Is there something wrong with this kid? Who loved their academy days? When you dig in deeper you will find he loved his instructors, but not so much the academy. As a proud father and a retired police officer, I was envious of the relationship he forged with his instructors, something that was so obvious as he introduced them to the entire family at graduation. He couldn’t wait to get “out there” and continue that bond with his new partners. And he was doing just that in the months following his graduation… and then the COVID19 precautions hit: quarantining, lock down, no response to minor jobs, and the rest. And just like that, policing was not quite what he thought it was going to be.
So when I spoke to him today and he told me that all he does is go to work and go home, and stay home and go to work, I could hear he was despondent and troubled. As I prodded into his still malleable brain, I tried to find out what was really bothering him. The MPD seemed to be doing all they can to protect its members. He was comfortable with that. He missed socializing – we all do. What it really boiled down to was how bizarre this time in our life is with COVID 19 and how he simply cannot make any sense of it – can any of us? Violent crime seemed to be business as usual in the 5th. How could that be? “Dad, what is going on?” I didn’t offer anything prophetic or brilliant – far from it. I simply explained that this was his “policing challenge” just as I lived through the crack wars in NYC in the 80s and then 9/11 at the turn of the century. He would look back at this with his brothers and sisters as their career challenge. And, he may have another before its all said and done. But today and the weeks to come, they will get through it. They have to. Together. And then 20 or so years from now they will all look back and think how “easy” it was. A huge challenge, but easy because they had each other and the job had to get done – no excuses. I hope he felt better after my words of “wisdom.” I hope he felt prouder than he did 20 minutes earlier. He should. He, along with all the other first responders and health care industry professionals are doing one hell of a job. God bless them!
